In this issue of Quality in Higher Education, papers are wide-ranging geographically and address issues relating to academic attitudes to quality processes; embedding quality management in institutions; the extent to which institutions comply with quality standards; and how the capabilities and competencies of staff and students can be developed. These are some of the perennial concerns in higher education and have featured regularly in this journal since its inception.
Two papers in this issue explore attitudes and perceptions of quality processes. In the first, which focuses on the academic community in Finland, Jasmin Overberg explores the continuing phenomenon of academic resistance to quality management in higher education and how quality managers address this challenge. Overberg’s findings suggest that resistance arises for practical, systemic, cultural and administrative reasons and that quality managers display a certain sympathy for such resistance and attempt to address it through consistently highlighting the benefits of quality management and avoiding terms associated with quality management.
In the second paper, a study of Saudi Arabian nursing programmes, Amal Alaskar, Ellen D’Errico, Laura Alipoon, and Salem Dehom explore the relationship between academics’ knowledge and awareness of process and purpose of accreditation and their motivation and level of involvement in the accreditation process. Their findings indicate that teachers in nursing programmes were more aware of the process and purpose of institutional accreditation than senior managers. This is surprising given the importance of accreditation to the reputation of institutions that offer nursing programmes. Higher awareness of process and purpose appear to be significant in motivating people to be involved in the accreditation process.
Embedding successful quality management is a continuing challenge and two papers in this issue seek to identify key issues. Khaled Azafari and Jan Kratzer discuss the major challenges associated with applying quality in European higher education and the extent to which the challenges to organisational quality vary between European countries. They identify three main areas where there are challenges: organisational, implementation and leadership but observe that many of the challenges are both long-standing and intractable. They highlight the continuing lack of a common understanding of quality in the sector; the difficulties in measuring quality; the changing nature of higher education itself; and the need for more training of staff in quality matters.
Similarly, in a paper focusing on German universities, Florian Reith and Markus Seyfried use the framework of the ‘seven deadly sins’ to illustrate inherent trade-offs or paradoxes in the implementation of internal quality management in teaching and learning in higher education institutions. Identifying the trade-offs behind these ‘sins’, they argue, is essential for a better understanding of quality management as an organisational problem.
Despite these pitfalls, quality management continues to grow in higher education in most parts of the world but there remain questions about the extent to which standards are adhered to by institutions. In a paper focusing on Ghanaian universities, Kwame Dattey, Don Westerheijden and Adriaan Hofman explore students’ perspectives on the extent to which universities in Ghana comply with national accreditation standards. The paper highlights both the differences between public and private universities in Ghana and the value of listening to the student perspective on their own experience as part of a quality assessment process.
The development of capabilities and competencies amongst both academics and students in higher education has been a concern for some years and two papers in this issue reflect the continuing need for development. In a paper that focuses on the Vietnamese experience, Mai Trang Vu explores the way in which academic professionalism can be developed and highlights the challenges in doing so. In particular, she observes that a managerial led approach has developed that encourages the professionalisation of academia which depends on measurement, functionality and productivity.
In a study that focuses on recent higher educational policy in the United Kingdom (UK), W. Brian Whalley identifies student capabilities and competencies and reflects on how they can be incorporated into higher educational policy. In particular, Whalley highlights the continuing challenge for universities in identifying ways to best measure learning and engagement amongst students and the current poverty of such measurements as the UK’s Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). Ultimately, he argues, current tools that are used in the UK are not fit-for-purpose and that much is to be learnt from other countries.
These papers all highlight challenges that face higher education in many different countries. Above all, the papers are underpinned by a concern with how to build a genuine and effective quality culture in higher education and one in which stakeholders are motivated by a desire for transformation.